Inside Croydon

WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, on a new unwitting subject for a sharp parliamentary pen

The last time a national newspaper dismissed a public figure as a “turnip”, Graham Taylor’s days as England football manager were numbered.

Yesterday, it was Steve Reed OBE, the townie MP for Streatham and Croydon North, who was given the turnip treatment, this time not by The S*n, but by the gently incisive pen (or laptop) of Guardian parliamentary sketchwriter, John Crace.

Activists in Norbury and Streatham are halfway to a fund-raising target to meet legal costs to consider a possible challenge to planning permission for a 14-storey tower which locals fear will destroy forever one of the finest views in all London.

Lambeth Council has granted permission to the Woodgate Tower development, to be built on the site of a disused Homebase off Greyhound Lane.

This decision was made despite more than 1,000 petition signatures, 800 formal objections and 400 complaints uploaded on to the GLA website.

It’s the annual London to Brighton veteran car rally this Sunday morning, when more than 100 old bangers set off from Hyde Park heading for the coast at Brighton, passing through Streatham, Norbury and Thornton Heath, trundling under the Croydon Flyover on to South Croydon, and then past Purley and Coulsdon along the way.

It is half-term week, which for rail passengers means a whole load of disruption to their regular services across south London.

Signalling upgrade work started at the weekend and is due to continue until this Friday, November 1, “which will result in major changes to train services across south London”, according to operators Southern.

In total, 11 stations will have no Southern services and 16 stations will have no Thameslink services during this week.

There will be significant disruption to rail services across south London, starting this weekend and continuing through to November 1, for engineering works.

There will be no Southern, Thameslink or London Overground trains in the Peckham Rye, Tulse Hill, Crystal Palace and Tooting areas.

Network Rail is modernising 1980s track and signalling on lines, with work starting on October 26.

“This work will provide a more reliable service with fewer delays,” says Southern.

Pity the poor people of Streatham (and Croydon North), who this morning discovered that they have elected as their MP – effectively given him a job for life – someone who thinks ignorance is some kind of acceptable excuse for a government minister.

And someone who really thinks it quite impertinent to be asked direct questions about their prediliction for accepting thousands of pounds’ worth of freebies from the very people they are supposed to be overseeing in their government job.

One thing that the not-guilty verdict, delivered by an Old Bailey jury yesterday in the controversial case of the police shooting of Chris Kaba, failed to provide was any clarity.

Croydon’s longest-serving MP, Steve Reed OBE, is the latest cabinet member to be named in the mounting scandal around the new Labour government’s apparent endless capacity for accepting gifts and freebies from big-money donors, industry interests and lobbyists.

Reed, now the MP for Streatham and Croydon North, has been accused of being “wined and dined by the very family of firms he must now take to task”.

Tories, environmental groups and a TV celebrity go on the attack as £130m cuts to rural budgets are next in Labour’s austerity plans.

Croydon MP Steve Reed OBE could be the real reason that his party leader, Keir Starmer, has been banned from Jeremy Clarkson’s new pub in Oxfordshire.

The former Top Gear presenter and Sunday Times columnist opened The Farmer’s Dog in Asthall just before the August bank holiday. After the success of his Amazon Prime series, Clarkson’s Farm, it seems Clarkson’s Pub is the obvious follow-up.

If you were hoping to plan any trips by train for the October half-term week – forget it.

There will be no train services on parts of the railway and London Overground network across a large part of south London for seven days at the end of October, as Network Rail conducts works to upgrade its signalling system.

Services to stations affected will include London Bridge, Crystal Palace, West Croydon, Gipsy Hill, Beckenham Junction, Streatham, Mitcham Junction, Carshalton, Sutton and Wimbledon.